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Okay now I need to hear a Haurchefant "eh" video because I've never gotten the love. Like I didn't dislike him or anything but the level of attachment (at least in the English translation) seemed more than his character had behind him writing wise.

So the way I like to interpret Sphene is that she's a metaphor for how unchecked grief can destroy someone. Her "programming" I think could be representative of grief itself threatening to consume and lead her down a destructive path she knows is wrong and harmful but struggles to rebel against. The Spare Soul System and Living Memory I think can be compared to "unhealthy coping mechanisms" that do give some semblance of comfort but are ultimately unsustainable and will only cause more harm to herself and others in the long run. Her unwillingness to look into alternatives I think can also be the fear of leaving that comfort zone and having to face the pain of overcoming grief head on and then when she fully gives in to her programming and deletes her memories is when she just can't find the strength to keep fighting anymore and lets herself spiral out of control. Finally when she talks about how she wishes we could have met her before could be interpreted as "I wish you could have met me when I was happier, before all this happened to me." Anyways sorry for the ramble, I think Sphene is a really interesting character I hope gets explored more!

I very much get the feeling that not only is bakool ja ja the youngest of the contestants, but also either the same age or younger than the twins if you compare his model size to gulool ja ja's model size, it's about the same size difference between adult and child elezen at least releasing valigarmanda didn't get anyone killed, y'know?

She can be a victim and a colonialist at the same time. Erenvelles hometown is basically an Indian reservation

Sphene is a largely sentient terminal program with a princess's memory template. There can be largely different readings on her, but she was implanted memories with a directive. Even if we perscribe characterization to her, she was a malformed recreation

"her outfit tells a story" yea, a story of how it NEEDS TO BE ON THE MOGSTATION, I NEED THOSE SHOES

So, I just happened to unlock Bozja on my current character after progressing most of DT, and Mikoto actually explains much of what is going on with the endless via her lecture on the types of aether that make up a person. Corporeal aether is our physical body. Incorporeal is our soul. The third type composes our memories, and in the grand scheme of things, actually kind of leftover aether that gets otherwise wiped away when we pass and enter the lifestream.

Something I noticed - with y'all calling out the 'wings' details on the back of her dress - those lines that look more like tattoos? They look to me like the kind of scars you might get if one was to surgically remove wings from someone's back. It may be that it's tattoos meant to symbolize her 'lost wings' or 'lost freedom' (or allude to the original Sphene's death and subsequent 'rebirth'). That might also be a call-out to Garnet's surgically removed horn.

Are you gay?

3:10 - Hold up. We already know Sphene's cause of "death". This was mentioned gently in story, hinted at by the Endless Sphene, and depicted briefly in Alexandia dungeon. She dies of Levinsickness. Lindblum's weapon destroyed much of Alexandria, and in the process of trying to save her fleeing people, her airship was attacked by the weapon. While she was retrieved from the wreck, she was overcome by Levinsickness, an imbalance of her own aether caused by the weapon towards lightning, a disease that can cause multiple forms of paralysis that can eventually result in death. Preservation was able to preserve the queen's soul in it's entirety, memory intact, and created an AI to house it to create the Eternal Queen we meet. Just to confirm what I say about Levinsickness, there is a huge reason she visits the child in Solution 9 that has the affliction. He can't move or speak. He can blink to communicate, and she visits him often. It's meant to be a way to show you, the person behind the WoL, what Sphene went through, as the actual Sphene had been afflicted with the same disease.

Lol what who is out there saying emet or Zenos were remorseful. Lol! Lmao even! They were absolutely not! Thats part of why I like them as characters.

Right now I really just have one question: What the frick was up with his hanger on. That guy clearly had ulterior motives but we never learn anything about him other than he latched on like a leech and then was killed. Either they shouldn't have had him have ulterior motives or they should have had someone say why he was there.

I feel like alot of the clash that caused so many opinions on DT characters especially Sphene vs who came before is how MUCH DT tried to put in with so little time. And I say this as someone who overall liked DT's story. Sphene is an incredibly complex character but we dont meet her until the last 2 sections. The game pushes a very complex, very divisive story idea of invasion, resettling, loss of tradition, new normals, toxic acceptance, etc without the nuance or time to actually give it the attention needed to make it land. And because of that the messiness of the writing is reflected onto Sphene, which is a shame because I think she's the only thing well thought out about the DT final act and that whole area. Maybe I'll have a change of mind about it in 7.1+ but I think a lot of the issues people equate to Sphene is everything else and not her. (But I hate her outfit sorry I said it).

Zoraal Ja's original plan, from 6.5, was to take the Tural armies into Eorzea and conquer Garlemald while they were down Once he found out no time has passed he'd probably conquer Tural and resume that?

Loved all of this! 100% accurate on Lyse. If she was a guy, she would just be a normal shonen protagonist. Most of the time I see hate for her, the criticisms just boil down to traits that would be considered totally normal in a man in the same genre. G'raha is an interesting case where, I think a female version could work in a different, less transmisogynist world. Because the way to fix the problems with female G'raha is to start her as male and have her transition after Shadowbringers. The intention behind G'raha's lines is to make him boyfriend material. He is clearly in love with, or at least in awe of, the WoL. But as a trans woman I couldn't help but read a lot of that admiration as gender envy from my character. Do I think it works better than male G'raha? No. Especially not the way people treat trans women. But it is an interesting thought experiment. There's a lot to work with in the idea of the Exarch spending that century in the First coming to slowly understand her own identity and resigning herself to never making it real before being given a second chance at life to become her true self.

Sphene and Wuk Lamat both seem to me to represent different eras of Disney Princess; Wuk Lamat is like the newer Princesses like Moana, Merida, and (dating myself to what's new to me) Pocahontas, while Sphene evokes Cinderella and Snow White, and of course is in charge of a Magic Kingdom. And I suppose a teeny tiny part of Dawntrail's story is the writers showing which sort of princess they think is better.

22:00 Twitter mutual jumpscare 😅

Y'shtola also spoke up the most advocating for the Beast Tribes, but there wasn't much of it, and all that seems to be resolved now.

(i wrote this while watching and it got longer and longer i'm so sorry i have many thoughts) as a huge FFIX fan i hooted and hollered any time she showed up and songs from the in-game theater plays were in the background. (I will fully admit i am easy to please with FFIX references in XIV) most songs that played during her lil shenanigans weren't even on the FFIX OST, they were on the Plus soundtrack. at first, i was like "oh, deep cuts huh." but the fact that all songs that play during her talking parts being from the plays that are dispersed throughout FFIX, the more i thought on it and oh my god: she's playing a role, she's lying, wearing a mask, intentions all hidden. so rarely does she let the mask slip, and usually the music just cuts out in those moments. it's like if the cheerful tour guide at the zoo suddenly is reminded how little the pay is or thinking about how much the owner of the place sucks or something, and it's so jarring. for a bit i wondered why they didn't go with something more recognizable like (later on i know it gets played but also cartoonishly and i still hooted and hollered) "something to protect" or a town's theme, but after finishing it makes the most sense why they made the choices they did music wise while she's being a tour guide. it's perfect. she's alexandria's perfect canary, on stage and always in character (except those brief glimpses when she is not). random lil tidbit i thought was a neat touch, sphene/titanite is a slightly radioactive gemstone, a more affordable stone to Peridot, which summons ramuh in FFIX. i thought that lightning motif was neat. and obviously her name comes from the fact that Garnet's name is also a gemstone (which summons bahamut). also side note, it's a one and done line, but i don't believe that lindblum started the calamity for them. i still don't believe her lmao. i was like "oh so we're just doing the propaganda queen brahne did, cool cool cool." (this is useless information tho built only on playing FFIX, nothing in XIV backs me up here lmaooo don't listen to me here) anyways thanks for the video, and sorry this was so long, i have so many thoughts on sphene and FFIX and the parallels present, and love thinking about her and her goals. her goals are just more than anything... tragic to me. it's desperation. everything she does is out of desperation and called devotion. dawntrail also made me think about nostalgia, about grief, and also made me replay FFIX in full recently, so there's a lot on my mind after finishing DT and FFIX again. i remember needing to stop for a sec and sitting on a bench in the children's area of living memory and just crying (out of sadness, out of happiness, out of "oh god these are all dead kids" idk, it was a mix of emotions). there's so much they pulled from FFIX from iconography, architecture, lore, and of course, including some of sphene's own goals. i loved dawntrail a lot (have some qualms naturally, but. this expac felt like it was wrapped in a 9 shaped bow for me.)

To me Sphene kinda feels like a living embodiment of the societal trauma that's at the core of Alexandria and the contradictions it creates. Alexandria may be ultra futuristic but they're still very much stuck in the past, completely unwilling to let go of stuff like their monarchy with Sphene being the ruler and to the lives and memories of the endless. The loss they experienced during the storm surge and the longing for the nostalgic days of before then hangs over Alexandria, even in the present day where nobody but Sphene truly understands the full weight and context of that history. That pain and longing is both the core motivator for the evil actions of Alexandria but also the reason Sphene can't fully bring herself to enact the plan of causing more giant tragedies to sustain Alexandria's unsustainable lifestyle. Sphene is quite literally the ghost haunting Alexandria, the desperate nostalgic desire to return to the happy days of lives long past and the inability to fully accept the fact that those days will never come back and that it's time to face that loss and move on.

This is a drive-by comment, but... 49 Million Gil?! HOW?!

First, I adore your adventuring glamour. Nice and simple. Second shame Haurchefant is still in my top 5 characters 14 has ever had and I can still talk about the man for hours (but only the English version can't stand the Japanese). Thank you for saying that about the Dying Gasp, for years I always felt it was kinda meh and haaaaaated how the voice mixing was. The final of DT is just good maybe great but nothing like the better ending battles, my fav still being Stormblood and I am not a Zenos fan. He's just useful as a tool but he's just that a tool to me. Maybe its cause I'm in the middle of going through Gundam Zeta and its creation but like I said here before Zoraal Ja reminds me of a Zabi family member, but now that I think on it Sphene reminds me of not a person but the Titans vs AUEG as in two ideas that are there to fight each other. Both saying for the good of the people but really to go after the other. Sphene is like the Titans willing to kill pointlessly people that aren't directly in her line of sight, but at the sametime like AUEG go to insane lengths to stop that. But in fact both sides need each other or they'd just be normal parts of the Feddies. She is so much a character that has eaten her cake and now wants to have it. Save all people but murder all people. If I had to sum her up she's glitched. What happens when you don't give commands in a program higher needs. Save life by any means but be sweet and kind are equal so rather then get stuck in a loop of errors she's doing both and it kills her. They are all her choices but much like a person under the will of their dark god why they want to make these choices are not logical. Like Emet before her, throwing people forever at Zodiark its a goal that leads to the end faster and faster. I put her in the camp of after my warrior of light has stopped her, my warrior loses no sleep over it, which was the same as Emet. Remember them yes but stopping them was needed. But with the up coming patch who knows. Also everytime I see the infinited of her hair loopies the colour makes my brain think of the logo for Kamen Rider OOO, and I don't know why and it bugs me, it doesn't look that much like it. Oh and the Guilty Gear clothes comment made me chuckle. Great vid and I too am a sucker for sad robot story.

Unless I am mistaken, I seem to remember the game stating that her tiara was her regulator, a "special" regulator.

I'd really love if the flowers on her necklace were myosotis (forget-me-nots), but alas, they seem more like roses.

I don't get how the anti Venat perspective loses steam or structure if you swap her to a guy. That argument isn't based off sexism.

I have been playing FF games for over three decades and have learned to assume the stories are real world parallels. To me Alexandria was once a great city state that looked after it's people, but a resource war not only physically broke them. Mentally as well. The real Sphene died and the most toxic side of Alexandria effectively became the rulers. I'm talking about Preservation. The shady science organization had to fill the void left behind. Sphene I feel became like a flag. A symbol of patriotism. Preservation was effectively in charge, but needed a "Sphene". Sphene as a symbol saved Alexandria. If you look at it all this way, Sphene becomes a necessary evil. One crafted from a desperate people at a desperate time.

great video as always! i had a pretty wild theory about Solution 9 and Sphene before Dawntrail came out, part of it having to do with her outfit, so i loved the analysis here. overall, i think Sphene is a really interesting character, and i interpreted her along the lines of like... colonization is always violent, even if it has a friendly face, or feigns sadness about what it's doing (though i don't believe SHE was faking her sadness). i also think the conflict between her genuinely wanting to do good for her people (and us, to an extent) but being trapped in her programming to some degree is fascinating. she was not blameless, but i also can't bring myself to dislike her. she's just really fun--and sad!--to think about. can't wait to see how they build upon what's been presented already! i'm almost certainly reaching here, but even after finishing DT part of me is still really intrigued by the brooch on her chest and her bangs, specifically. i can't help but think her brooch looks weirdly similar to the eye-shaped things that Garleans have on their armour, in almost the exact same spot. now, hers of course has words engraved into it, so it's not exactly the same, but there's more; i found it very suspicious that her bangs perfectly cover exactly where a Garlean eye would be, if she had one. it probably makes absolutely no sense to think that she is somehow the result of a secret Garlean project or something (because i guess that would mean i think Preservation was made by Garleans? which i'm not sure i believe lol), i'm not perfectly versed in the timeline of FFXIV's history, but pre-Dawntrial i had tons of silly theories about Garlean or Garlean ancestors/descendants' involvement with the Void (specifically, the use of memoria crystals) being key to how Solution 9 worked and even though i am probably wrong i still can't stop thinking about it! the purple sparkly stuff on her hip enveloping the infinity sign that makes me think "Void" doesn't help quell my ridiculous theorycrafting either, lol. but i am prepared and excited to be totally wrong!!

Sphene reminds me strongly of Auto, the ship's Autopilot from WALL-E. They built a ship to carry humans away from a dying Earth, and gave the autopilot a strict order to never return. Seven hundred years later even though proof was found that Earth was habitable, it fought back against returning even in the face of orders from the captain. Preservation took a beloved young woman in a time of crisis, digitized her at the moment of her traumatic death, and installed her as keeper of the repository for the dead. Even branded her with the words ETERNAL SERVICE. The universe could be weighed against the existence of even a single Endless and found wanting. Of course she became a monster.

For me personally Sphene's outfit having that Victorian flare gives the same vibe as a vampire. She is old, dressing in the way she dressed when she was alive, even as everything else has so drastically changed around her. Alexandria is all progress no tradition, since they have no memories of older folks to guide them. The culture is constantly iterating on its one moment without any nostalgia going back more than a few decades. At best you'll have someone truly elderly who can't remember a single face from their child hood, only maybe what they used to wear. Sphene on the other hand can't only remember what she wore in life, she must wear it as a symbol of status, a constant reminder of a past long forgotten.

My read on her, and my take away from 7.0 so far (spoilers: duh) She was intended to be like Eden, an Ascian designed monster that would ensure the next big calamity, who she was or was based on is her front facing person, but her core programming was designed to ensure a collapse of the 9th. Only it didn't happen, as the other pieces never got finished, I assume that Zoraal Ja and Valigarmanda were both a part of the plan but it was meant to be 50 to 100 years later. I also think that the Ascians were probably going to remove Azem's "key" prior to the change in dawnservants, they just never got around to it because we defeated them all. ESP any who would have been in on the plan. Looking at Emet... but yeah, that's my takeaway, also since I think the soul collection business was part of the plan, I'm sure the souls are not tampered with and the memories are just copies of the memories. And the regulator suppresses the soul memories so people don't realize what they are doing. Emet-Selch wouldn't design a system that would jeopardize the rejoining by consuming souls. Collecting them into nice quiet stasis however so they can smash into the source easier he would do, we see that on the fist with the sin eaters.

Sphene is my favorite character from Dawntrail. My read on Sphene is that she was a benevolent AI boxed in by her programming in an impossible situation. I'm also a fan of sad robot stories!

My opinion on Sphene is that Sphene as she is when we meet her in Heritage Found is kind of like the Stepford Wives version of the original, Alexandrian Sphene. She was undoubtedly kind and sweet and caring, but after her "resurrection" by Preservation they probably emphasized those aspects and removed any sort of negative parts of her personality, and when we confront her after the trial fight we see the original version of her. Going by her actions in the game, she is a fiend. Strip away the technology and the personality and what you're left with is a lich queen presiding over a kingdom of the dead who has an endless desire to expand and feed that kingdom. Living Memory is effectively a cross between a server farm and a necropolis, just with the latter's usual hallmarks (tons of corpses and bones scattered around, necromancers raising the dead, blighted ground (although when you start shutting down the terminals it sort of gets a technological version of that with the dull, drab electrope replacing the bright, vivacious colors), polluted water) swapped out for a theme park version of a dead and gone kingdom.

Every time I run Alexandria dungeon in roulette my tolerance for Sphene lessens more and more. Among the issues are that my interest in "Sad Robot Stories" is negative, that her closest parallel is Emet and Elidibus and thus asking my to care about her genuine emotional pain and desire to befriend us and Wuk Lamat is little different than asking me to treat Emet's proffered friendship and sorrow/regrets as compelling and sympathetic, and that yes, the colonization and weaponized white femininity (which easily tangles into transmisogyny) and the unpleasantness of her visual design does overwhelm her other facets and angles. Speaking of Sphene's visuals - her hair is Don Bluth heroine, which makes her "not-Disney-Princess" even funnier. And the worst pet peeve to have as a fantasy fan is to get annoyed by "Medieval" costuming elements that have zero to do with medieval or Renaissance but everything to do with Victorians and the Pre-Raphelites. Because the lack of spiral lacing will be inescapable. Let alone silhouettes. But Endless Sphene's design being futuristic elements mixed with 19th Century false ideas of what medieval were is a perfect storytelling/character illumination - her necklace is the only part of her that could genuinely pass for something older in style than modern pretending to be Victorian pretending to be medieval. So it's just as fake in the exact same way as Yesterland. So, just like Emet - an extremely well-constructed, designed, and acted villain. Has earned her popularity but I am her anti-audience. The last thing I want is her continued presence in future patches and expansions beyond what the story needs, hoping that the fanservice is saved for the lizards.

Personally I think Sphene was programmed to go through with the dimensional fusion & soul stealing, regardless of what she or the original Sphene truly wants. That was likely one of the conditions Preservation "resurrected" her on. I don't think they would have let her possibly decide to change her mind later. I think that's why the line got repeated multiple times: "If things take a turn for the worse, may I call upon your aid?"

The glyphage on the crown and the presence of the key tells me there’s a connection to Azem, in my gut. There’s a wild speculation of what Azem was up to if not taking a side during the final days, and I feel like that’s the walk we’ll take moving forward. But, to be fair, that’s all a leap on weak evidence

Great video! I always appreciate the nuance you bring to whatever topics you cover :D My theory about Sphene's "special" regulator is that it has the ability to access the "Memory" aether that is taken and stored separately from the life force when souls are harvested/uploaded to LM. This means all the times she talks about her love for her people and her desire to learn all about them is essentially coming from an echo of those who have passed on. In that way it would be related to the memory crystals the Ancients used, our job stones, or even the Echo's ability to see into the past. To me this would make her story even more tragic! Rather than her programmed desire to protect and preserve her people (including those in LM) coming from a more vague sense of duty or a leader's love for their people - it would also be coming from a very specific and individual feeling of love for one's actual friends and family.

Man. I feel for whoever gets the gumption to attempt to make the embroidery on the back of her corset 😂

Honestly I think part of what draws me to Sphene as much as I am is that she's full of seemingly genuine contradictions. She's sweet and genuinely empathetic and caring, but at the same time capable (whether willing or forced) of doing truly monstrous things. She's resolved to do the things she feels need to be done in order to protect her people, but at the same time she's actually kind of pathetic about how much she chafes under the restrictions she is that won't let her help them. Wrap all of that up in a pretty woman and you have the recipe for the star's most powerful and successful girlfailure.

I quite like Sphene and have her as probably my favourite character in the expansion so far (and potentially one of my faves in the whole game) pretty much because of everything discussed in this video. She's familiar but different. And I quite like that she's able to contain all of the various interpretations and aspects without them really feeling at odds with each other. As pointed out in the video, there's a tendency for 14 (and in particular for 14s fan base) to sort of hand wave Bad actions because of that character's "Good" side. But Sphene really is all of that, it's just that we don't know exactly where or why the division is. We don't know how much of the "her" we see is still the original her, how much of it is essentially the machine and the programming, or if any of it is real at all. I do personally feel that there is at least some of the "real" Sphene still there not just because of the friendliness but also because of how she seem acts in response to the guards that are around her. Of course, as a long time fan of cyberpunk, I also just tend to jive with stories that deal with that mix of technology and personality and the sort of Ship of Theseus debates they lead to.

SPHENEEEEEEEE LISTEN TO ME!!!!

Love your perspective, even the disagreements. You are a great example of having a different opinion without being abusive about it. Thanks so much for your work

Leaving a comment for the algorithm. I love your videos! I’m going to pause it and come back to it until I finish Final Fantasy IX though. I’m finished with the MSQ for Final Fantasy 14 so spoilers are not a problem there but I still got about 1/3 of IX to go :-)

It's over...

I don’t know, I think Uriangerlooks more like hot dad while Thancred looks like midlife crisis dad